Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Wolfgang’ on Disney+, a Mostly Fluffy Biography of First-Ever Celeb Chef Wolfgang Puck

Disney+ documentary Wolfgang tells the story of Wolfgang Puck, deemed by many to be the first of his kind: the modern celebrity chef. Before Bourdain, before Gordon Ramsay, but after Julia Child, who was famous, but wasn’t the crossover capitalist that Wolfgang became. Director David Gelb helms the film, taking a straightforward biographical approach in chronicling the chef’s extraordinary rise to fame — a rise that began decades ago and never really slowed down.

WOLFGANG: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Wolfgang Puck pulls up to Chino Farms, north of San Diego. He greets an old friend, tastes a fresh melon, bites raw corn right off the cob. He talks about how it’s time for him to slow down and take it easy, that he doesn’t know how much time he has left. He’s 71 now — a fact the film doesn’t share, but hey, there’s always good ol’ Wikipedia — and has enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame. Cue a David Letterman clip from the ’80s with Wolfgang as a guest; cue a commentator declaring him the first celebrity chef; cue current-day shots of him making the rounds, from the kitchen to the dining room floor, in his famous Los Angeles restaurant, Spago.

Then we see Wolfgang in pastoral Austria, where he visits his sister, Christina. They speak in Bavarian. She’s making cheese dumplings just like their mother did — and believe it or not, she teaches Wolfgang a thing or two about cooking, like how the dumplings need to simmer in water, not boil. Wolfgang grew up poor, with no running water. He felt “safer” in the kitchen, cooking with his mother and grandmother, where he was away from his abusive stepfather, who used to make him go out in the woods and pick out a stick to be beaten with. The film jumps between the bustle of Hollywood and the stillness of Austria. In archival footage from the 1980s, we see Wolfgang cater food at the Oscars, and he tells a story about how he whipped up one of his now-signature items, smoked salmon pizza, off the cuff after serial smoked salmon lover Joan Collins arrived at Spago, and they were plum out of bread.

We see a still photo of Wolfgang’s stepfather, shirtless and posing with his fists up, in boxing gloves. He used to tell the boy he was useless, that his desire to be a chef would result in failure. At 14, Wolfgang moved out and got a job at a hotel kitchen, and swore he’d never return home again. He used his stepfather’s cruel words as fuel to overcome hurdles, as he went from peeling potatoes at the hotel to France to California, where he landed at Ma Maison, a flagging L.A. flagship restaurant that he revived after finding extraordinary produce at Chino Farms. But this was the ’70s, and the chef got no respect while the restaurateur reveled in all the glory.

So, urged by his then-wife, Barbara Lazaroff — identified as “co-founder and partner, the Wolfgang Puck Brand,” with “ASID” by her name, which I think is American Society of Interior Designers, so she must be very fancy — he opened Spago. It had an open kitchen. You could sit down, order a drink and watch the culinary artists at work. It was an instant success, although how and why it was so isn’t at all clarified. But we believe it, because since then, Wolfgang has become “the Tom Cruise of chefs,” franchised his restaurants, become a TV star, lent his name and recipes to a line of frozen pizzas and been a tireless workaholic, a man who doesn’t just try to do everything, he actually does everything, except spend enough time with his kids. His personal life wasn’t always that great, but he’s making up for that now by visiting his sister and teaching his son to be a chef.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Gelb knows his way around food. He helmed the extraordinary 2011 doc Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a profile of master sushi chef Jiro Ono that should have been nominated for an Oscar. Please note, Wolfgang will probably not be nominated for an Oscar; it reminded me more of the Ralph Lauren puff-piece hagiography Very Ralph.

Performance Worth Watching: Gelb daren’t cast any talking heads who are more charismatic than his subject. So Wolfgang is going to be the reason you stick with Wolfgang.

Memorable Dialogue: Lazaroff winds up and smashes a cliche into the stratosphere: “I think Wolf’s legacy is (pause for dramatic effect) love.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Guess what? Wolfgang Puck did all the things before the things were things. Documentaries like this like to point those things out. He was farm-to-table decades before the phrase existed. The Food Network wouldn’t exist without him. He invented fusion (as in “the blending of international cuisines,” not “nuclear”). Asian chicken salad that you can find in every deli from here to Timbuktu? He made it first. Pizza without sauce or cheese? Are you NUTS? Well, Wolfgang didn’t think it was nuts, not at all, and his friends, family members and agent all attest to that. Now here’s a list of every famous person who ate at Spago: Kidding, that’d nuke my word count. But Johnny Carson used to buy a dozen of Wolfgang’s pizzas at a time so he could put them in the freezer for later, inspiring the chef to start a line of frozen pizzas — a segment in the movie that comes a little too soon after the segment in which American restaurant food in the ’70s was horrible because it was frozen, and Wolfgang refused to cook frozen steaks at Ma Maison.

Nobody thinks to ask Wolfgang about that contradiction, although the impression I get from the guy is that he’d probably chuckle about it. He’s a likable fellow, and he opens up just enough to cut the usual documentary fluff with something genuine. His refusal to return home meant he never saw his grandmother again, and he was unreachable when family wanted to tell him she was on her deathbed. His commitment to building the Wolfgang corp led to divorce, and he says he wishes he’d been a better family man. This stuff feels calculated, but also sincere, and convinces us that Wolfgang is more than just a familiar face from TV. He’s famous, he’s rich, but he’s also human.

Our Call: Wolfgang is far (far!) from hard-hitting journalism, but fans of the man and the brand will enjoy this concise, 78-minute bio. So I say STREAM IT, but with (wait for it) (brace yourselves) (here it comes) reservations.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Wolfgang on Disney+